BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Pizza boxes were piled on the island in the kitchen. They were empty, and what little remnants of the various “flavors” of Italian-American dinner pie… Well… Lunch and Breakfast Pie for that matter… But, I slobber as I digress. Fitting I suppose, given the title. But back to the story at hand…

…what little remnants of the various “flavors” of Italian-American dinner pie that were left had been tossed into a Tupperware container and stuffed into the icebox for later. At the moment, there was still work to be done.

You see, before I started blogging to keep folks up to date on my whereabouts and nefarious deeds, I had an e-newsletter. While I don’t regularly send one out any longer, I do use the list for announcements and the like. And, prior to establishing the e-newsletter, I had a good old-fashioned paper newsletter. I even have an 11×17 paper folder in my basement. Anybody know someone interested in buying it?

There I go, digressing again…

Let’s continue… AND, before THAT, my newsletter was on 8.5 x 11 paper, and stuffed into envelopes. So, when you have 2000 plus newsletters to stuff into envelopes in order to send them out to fans and bookstores, and you barely have enough money to print the newsletter to begin with, what do you do? Well, you don’t hire a mailing service, that’s for sure. You hire your friends. You buy pizza and beer, invite them over, and make them fold for their supper…

Or, in my case, I join them in the folding while E K strolls back and forth, occasionally slapping us with her riding crop and screaming, “FASTER LACKEYS!” as she makes us ALL work for our supper – which, of course, is primarily the leftover pizza crust from her plate that she tosses to us as we grovel at her feet.

Think I’m kidding? Two words: Evil Redhead.

But anyway… There we were, “Mentos”, The Chunk Man, E K, me, and even the o-spring, sitting around the dining room table with plastic milk crates of newsletters and boxes of envelopes and rolls of stamps. We had ourselves a regular assembly line going.

The Chunkster and E K were on folding duty, because they are both insanely meticulous about such. Mentos and I were stuffing the pre-printed envelopes, and I was pulling double duty putting the stamps on them as well. I really didn’t have much choice. E K kept kicking me under the table.

Anywho, the o-spring was all of about 4 at the time, which meant she was all about helping. For some reason that changes when they hit the tween/teen years. However, that’s now and this was then… So, back then, she was all about helping, and what she really wanted to do was lick the envelopes and seal them.

Okay, all good. She’s pretty meticulous too, so once she was shown the process, there was no worry about her slobbering on them or anything.

We had been at the project for better than two hours, with only a short break for dinner. Everything was coming together, moving like a well-oiled machine. Then, it happened… The end of the line started slowing down. By that, I mean the o-spring was no longer sealing envelopes. In fact, she was sitting in her chair with a bizarre look on her face as she smacked her lips.

My first thought was that she had given herself a paper-cut. I’ve done the same on envelopes when not paying attention. But there was no apparent blood and she wasn’t crying. Just seemingly perplexed.

E K turned to her and said, “Why did you stop? What’s wrong?”

The o-spring smacked her lips a couple of more times, then said without missing a beat, “I’m all out of tongue water.”

Creative descriptions… I guess that’s what happens when one of your parents is a writer.

More to come…

Murv

THE PUF REPORT: Part 2 of 5

You know, this whole being an author gig is kind of interesting, in a psychological mindf*ck sort of way, if you get my meaning.

Now, if you don’t get my meaning, I hope you will by the end of this blog entry. But – and this is a big but (stop snickering) – before I go any further, I want to point out an important bit of info: I write because I enjoy writing. I sought publication because I enjoy sharing stories, and I’ll admit that it’s nice to get paid to do something you enjoy. (Not that the paycheck is all that big, mind you.) So, writing was pretty much my only choice in the  “professions I truly enjoy” category because I don’t have the necessary endowments to make it big in the adult film industry.

But, be that as it may, what I’m driving at here is the fact that I did NOT go into this profession seeking fame. Really and truly, I didn’t. With fame comes all sorts of responsibility that I really don’t want. Unfortunately, by definition, the whole “branding” and “marketing” thing does tend to make your name known to readers of a particular genre and that sort of thing.  Ergo, while not necessarily what you would call “fame”, there is a certain level of “recognition” that is achieved. It’s actually even somewhat necessary – as I said, “marketing” – in order to have any kind of success in this field.  Yeah, it just sorta comes with the territory, like it or not.

Fortunately for me, I’m a ham and I don’t mind a little bit of attention every now and then. Unfortunately, however, I am afraid I might have become a bit used to it.

Okay, before anyone says anything about that statement above, no, the author thing hasn’t gone to my head. Dorothy Morrison would probably tell you otherwise and that I have to use a pair of scissors to get out of a pullover shirt, but that’s simply not true. (I’ve had all of them altered to include a Velcro quick release a the shoulder seams.) That, and she lies on me all the time. It’s how she is.

Still, with all that said, I have become somewhat used to arriving at an event and having people recognize who I am and be happy to see me.

This is where we segue to Lasagna.

Okay, I’ll sit back for a second and wait for everyone to slip into their neck braces, what with that sudden case of whiplash coming out of nowhere… Everybody ready? Good… Here we go…

At PUF (Pagan Unity Festival) there is a community feast on Saturday night. Everyone brings a dish to share and the event usually preps a major entree like ham and chicken or something of that sort. There’s food for miles, but we are actually going to get to that in a later blog, so I won’t give you all the food details right now. The point behind me telling you this is that some years back everyone donated frozen lasagna. Yeah…everyone… Their dish to share was the old standby, family-sized pan of frozen, layered, Italian-American pasta. PUF literally received something like 40 pans of it. In the wake of this glut of pasta the fest has requested that no one donate lasagna ever again under pain of horrible and terrible, prolonged, agonizing death. Thank you, and go about enjoying yourselves now. Etc.

Well… you know me… I take that as a challenge… Yeah, you guessed it. Every year it is a moral imperative that I and my crew donate a frozen lasagna, if for no other reason than to get a decent laugh. Now, since we do this primarily as a joke, we buy cheap lasagna. And, since it is frozen, we tend to buy it when we get close to the event – as in just a few miles away. The past few years it has been obtained from the Kroger in Dickson, TN since that is right near the park where PUF is held.

So, by now I am sure you are all wondering just exactly what Kroger Frozen Lasagna has to do with this whole authoring thing, fame, and even more so, why this post is titled “Where’s Kat?”. Well, believe it or not, it all fits together.

Seriously. Would I lie about that? (Okay, don’t answer that.)

Ahem… Koff… Koff… Well, let me see if I can tie it all together for you. Obviously, “Kat” is none other than E K. If that wasn’t obvious, it should be now that I have told you (wink wink, nudge nudge). At any rate, after she was through torturing Johnathan… Well… Actually she’s never truly finished torturing anyone… But, moving on… After she was finished torturing Johnathan for the time being, we finally rolled into Montgomery Bell State Park where PUF is held each year. We checked in at the gate, did our annual “Royal Wave” as Johnathan and I rode down to the cabin on the back of the van, and then started to unload. (Note: The only reason E K doesn’t make us ride on the outside of the van during the rest of the trip is because it is illegal on the highway. Although, on numerous occasions she has been known to tie someone up and put them in the car top luggage carrier, but that’s another story.)

As we were unloading the van, I noticed that the Frozen Lasagna was  well on its way to getting melty, so I grabbed it up and headed down the hill to the main hall where the kitchen and fridges are located. It was nice to finally be off the road after a long drive, and I was excited to see all the folks I call my friends, but who I only get to visit with about once per year.

When I reached the bottom of the hill I walked into the dining hall, then through the doors and into the kitchen. There was bustling activity among the crew as they prepared the evening meal. I grinned and tossed the lasagna on the counter as I always do. It felt like I was coming home again. For a brief few seconds, anyway…

You see, usually I am greeted with something along the line of, “Murv’s here!” being shouted with much excitement. This year, however, instead of anything involving my name and happiness over my arrival, what met my ears was, “Where’s Kat?”

Initially I figured this was just an odd anomaly. A one-time occurrence. Nothing that should raise any sort of concern. But then someone came out of the back, rounded the corner, saw me, then smiled and asked, “Where’s Kat?” Then, someone came in through the doors behind me, noticed I was standing there and said, “Oh hi, Murv. Where’s Kat?”

I answered the question two dozen times before I made it out of the dining hall, only to be bombarded with it all the way back up the hill to our cabin. I  finally lost count of how many more times it was asked of me over the weekend. Suffice it to say, it became painfully clear that I had been unceremoniously and completely usurped by the Evil Redhead.  Murv was nobody. All hail E K.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, she’s far prettier than I’ll ever be, and then there’s that whole “hot, sexy, evil without boundaries” thing she has going for her. I suppose it was only a matter of time…

But, you know, that’s not the most troublesome development out of all this… As always, the planning for the following year’s PUF begins approximately 24 hours after the end of the current year’s PUF, so all of that is already in full swing. Not unusual, except that I’ve already been hearing rumors that we author types are being completely cut from the program.

Apparently E K is going to be the 2010 Guest of Honor.

More to come…

Murv

The next installment in THE PUF REPORT: Part 3 of 5 – Dingle? What’s A Dingle?